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Microsoft trumpets strong Windows 7 adoption

Company claims to have sold 175 million licences

Windows 7 has become the fastest selling operating system in Microsoft's history

Microsoft, which announced its second-quarter financial earnings today,
coupled the news with the revelation that it has reached a milestone in Windows
7 sales.

The number of Windows 7 licences already dished out to purchasers numbers 175
million, according to the firm. This means,
the
firm explained, that Windows 7 is now operating on more than 16 per cent of
the world's PCs.

Apparently the operating system is selling at the rate of seven copies a
second - Microsoft said "more than" seven a second - making it the fastest
selling operating system in the firm's history.

Although it may be tempting to assume that this is all down to new consumer
purchases, Brandon LeBlanc, Windows communications manager, said that the firm
is also starting to see the operating system take hold in enterprises.

"The PC 'refresh cycle' for businesses has accelerated, and we recorded the
second straight quarter of double digital business licence growth," he
explained.

Microsoft will end support for Windows XP in 2014, a factor likely to lead to
more sales, according to analysts at Gartner, who this week commented that the
cost of migrating from XP to Windows 7 in large organisations could be as much
as
£1,360
per PC.

LeBlanc said that, as well as increasing sales of Windows 7, the firm had
also won more favour with Internet Explorer 8, which he called the "fastest
growing and most popular web browser in the market" quoting
figures
from Net Applications.

All this is helping to contribute to strong revenue gains at the firm, which
announced its
best
ever second-quarter earnings with net income increasing by 48 per cent year
on year to $4.52bn (£2.93bn).

Windows 7, along with Office 2010, was credited for much of the growth.